Eschew Obfuscation –
By Michael Douglass –

I’m a little embarrassed.

I do hope you enjoy my etchings because of my unapologetic approach when taking on the big issues. I just love the big cats. I confess I’ve been hiding on this one. My reluctance is informed by personal relationships and the deafening heat of the controversy lately. The burning incandescence on social media alone singed me enough to back way off.

Maybe I owe you. Maybe I feel an obligation. I owe myself. I struggled with objectivity and visceral anger. I think I’ve been able to open the aperture wide enough to allow the big picture. Had to let lots of light in. I understand this will chap a lot of asses, but I need to get it off my chest while my hand is steady enough to share my thoughts.

There is no question that the situation between Israel and Palestine is a tragedy beyond imagination for anyone not experiencing it firsthand.

A closed loop of violence leading to more violence. A zero sum game. A vicious cycle of carnage and destruction that is so profound, so utterly horrifying that most of us can not bare to look.

But still, there are those of us who can stare and revel and relish.

It is a vacuum of logic. No matter what the more moderate rhetoric coming from either side asserts, the ultimate goal is the annihilation of the opposing side. Neither side will own satisfaction without the complete extinction of the other. They’ve both said as much. It’s insane.

And for what?

Centuries, sometimes millennia old religious myths. It’s gotta be one of the dumbest, most ridiculous and pointless campaigns in human history. What’s new?

Israel finds itself in the position of rolling tanks to a water balloon fight. Because they can. And they do. Not even close to what any sane observer would call a measured response. Are they guilty of human atrocity and war crimes?

You bet your ass they are.

Kinda like the U.S. in Iraq.

Would Hamas take it upon themselves to engage in exactly the same level of human vivisection if they were wearing the same shoe of absolute military superiority and total economic dominance?

In a fucking heart beat.

Doth both very bad actors have blood on their hands? The intentional blood of their own people on their hands? Let me just say they are both so festooned with gore one would be hard pressed to tell them apart. One might compare numbers but it occurs to me that’s like comparing dicks.

Is the U.S. complicit? Yes, we are guilty as hell. We fucking fund it.

Is Palestine? Absolute Islamic fundamentalist whack jobs. Quite a bit like Christians.
Is the media culpable by only covering the very extreme edges and without humanity, fomenting polarization as rocket fuel for the inferno?

Absofuckinglutely.

To be clear, I’m not blaming anybody, I’m blaming everybody.

From the Hamas Charter:
“….. “our struggle against the Jews is very great and very serious” and calls for the eventual creation of an Islamic state in Palestine, in place of Israel and the Palestinian Territories, and the obliteration or dissolution of Israel.” -Wikiepedia
“The time will not come until Muslims will fight the Jews [and kill them]; until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him!” -Wikepedia

“Every day, official Palestinian television calls Jews “rats” and “animals.” This is repugnant. On the official Facebook page of Palestinian schools, one sees photographs of Hitler, and cartoons that illustrate the hadith (statements attributed to the prophet Mohammed) saying that Muslims must kill the Jews before the Last Judgment (“Yom al-Din”).” -The Washington Institute

As for Israel:
” [The Palestinians are] beasts walking on two legs.” Menachem Begin, speech to the Knesset, quoted in Amnon Kapeliouk, “Begin and the Beasts”. New Statesman, 25 June 1982.
“When we have settled the land, all the Arabs will be able to do about it will be to scurry around like drugged cockroaches in a bottle.” Raphael Eitan, Chief of Staff of the Israeli Defence Forces, New York Times, 14 April 1983.

“We have to kill all the Palestinians unless they are resigned to live here as slaves.” Chairman Heilbrun of the Committee for the Re-election of General Shlomo Lahat, the mayor of Tel Aviv, October 1983.

“One million Arabs are not worth a Jewish fingernail.” — Rabbi Yaacov Perrin, Feb. 27, 1994 [Source: N.Y. Times, Feb. 28, 1994, p. 1]

Am I supposed to pick a dog in this hunt?

Explosive murderous hate based exclusively on bullshit undiluted Santa in the sky religious crap.

This cannot possibly end well because logic has no purchase.

The question is, how can it possibly end?

It certainly shows no sign.

Will there ever be a postmortem?

When are we, as a mere single species on this tiny blue marble, going to gain some humility and grow the fuck up?

It is beyond absurd. It is beyond disgusting. There are no words.

A heartbreaking lack of reason.

Drinks for my friends.